National Buildplan jobs on the line: union

NSW-based construction firm National Buildplan has gone into administration, leaving the future of multi-million dollar building projects around the country in doubt.

A statement posted on the company's website late on Monday said: "Recent strategies to restructure the company and secure additional funding have not been successful leading to a requirement to place the company into voluntary administration."

Fairfax reports at least 180 jobs are at risk.

The company would be working closely with insolvency firm BRI Ferrier "to achieve the best outcome possible", the statement went on.

National Buildplan and Watpac Construction in November won a $65 million joint tender for the main works of the Port Macquarie Hospital upgrade on the NSW mid-north coast.

The troubled firm also won an $8 million contract for construction enabling works at Dubbo Base Hospital in central NSW and has operations in Queensland and Western Australia.

The union representing workers at National Buildplan sites, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), said the family-owned company still owed sub-contractors millions.

The CFMEU said one sub-contractor working for the company at Nepean Hospital was owed almost $500,000.

The union's assistant state secretary, Rebel Hanlon, said the NSW government had failed to act on 44 recommendations made by the Collins inquiry in January, including a call for the mandatory establishment of construction trusts on all projects valued at $1 million or more.

Bruce Collins, QC, led a three-month probe into the industry after a string of high-profile construction firms collapsed and left suppliers and sub-contractors out of pocket to the tune of $1 billion.

"In the wake of construction company collapses, it has been the CFMEU that has helped many of these sub-contractors get their money and lobbied to ensure unpaid workers are re-employed on building sites," Mr Hanlon said in a statement late on Monday.

"The government has a report and recommendations that would have bailed out many of the victims of this latest building collapse, and has done nothing."